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Scotland Yard Gospel Choir

Finding the cheery pop song in utter despair.

Wednesday Aug 09, 2006.     By Gavin Paul

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For frontman Elia Einhorn, life has been riddled with free-flowing fear and anxiety; his is an obsessive-compulsive world built on an unstable childhood and drug addiction, constantly feeling as if he'd never "gotten that list of rules to live by."

"I'm telling you, it's like I was just sitting there in the most utter despair because there was nothing I could do to fix myself." So Einhorn did what anyone would do—belt it out in a charming pop song.

One part Brit and infinite parts all-American, Wales-born Einhorn and his band, The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir, whittle tales of dark, shadowy gloom cunningly hidden behind some of the sweetest and most lush orchestra-pop on the Midwestern circuit. The resulting rock-show therapy session consistently and cathartically taps everything from fuzzy-warm keys and vocal-bare folk to raucous, shoulder-flailing punk rock.

The orch-pop tag is mostly chalked up to the 30-plus musicians that have swung through the collective. Talent like trumpeter Nate Wolcott (Bright Eyes, Rilo Kiley), violinist Grace Yang (Northbrook Symphony Orchestra) and current core member cellist Ellen O'Hayer, have helped fuse the melodramatic edge that's so synonymous with the genre and artists like Badly Drawn Boy or Belle and Sebastian.

Some critics think the band sounds a little too much like Belle and Sebastian, though, with its matching seven-piece ensemble. The Chicago Reader's Peter Margasak went so far as to say the group blatantly copies the wistful spirit of the Glasgow indie-cult heroes, suffocating the band's merit to some degree.

Einhorn has been graceful with the lampooned heat, claiming it's his own fault leaking his "obsession" to the press early on in his career. O'Hayer, also his girlfriend of four years, chimes in, "You have to realize what a massive fan of Belle and Sebastian he is…I mean, he and Boston [ex-guitarist] used to sit [in coffee shops] and play covers, just with reckless abandon."

But the band chugged along, snagging the attention of Sun-Times music critic Jim DeRogatis with its poignant debut I Bet You Say That To All The Boys; DeRogatis praised the band's "Jennie That Cries," as a "beautiful, lulling single, with a special emphasis on gorgeous vocals."

From there, XRT gave them a spin, DeRogatis pushed for a spot on Sound Opinions and opener slots for everyone from The Walkmen to Arcade Fire started flowing. "Jim opened the door for us. [We're] forever in his debt for that," says Einhorn.

Yet SYGC is pretty self-sufficient, promoting itself with its own label and relying more on its effect on fans. At a live show, it's not uncommon to see a stiff-shirt yuppie, dripping a joyful tear into his gin and tonic, standing next to two teenage lovers singing along to every word; something that caught the eyes of the production staff of The O.C., which turned into a spot on the 2005 season's soundtrack, as well as a fill on a recent Second City play about the eclectic social-networking site, Myspace.

Einhorn, still eradicating fear, reveals how he touches the melodramatic masses: "Like Hemingway always said, to show real life you have to put a microscope up to it. When you can fit the whole human existence into this one three-minute song, that's it. Then you know you've reached it. You've got it."

In the beginning:
It was in the suburbs in Libertyville at Caribou Coffee. Man, oh boy…it was all family and us sounding like shit; lots of family, a few friends and a band that sounded like absolute crap.

After a gig we:
Usually go to Pick Me Up and eat. That, or go home. We don't drink or do drugs or anything, so. We...just shoot the shit, eat some vegetarian food.

What's cool in your next of the woods:
Laurie's Planet of Sound is a phenomenal record store. There's also this neat bowling alley above the Ace Hardware, untouched from like the '50s. It's this weird piece of Americana that most people don't know about.

Here I am, rock you like a:
Charmin drier sheet.

I get live at:
Schubas—absolutely phenomenal sounding room. For a band like ours, that's so key. A show can be made or broken by it.

Fresh from the woodshop:
We've got the new record coming out (no set date) and a new colored seven-inch (late September), which is two songs from the record and one just for this release. I've also got a punk band—Me and Z—with a series called The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir Presents that we've been writing for.

Coming soon to a stage near you:
August 14 at the Navy Pier Beer Garden. It'll feature some good musicians; the core of us plus all our friends from other bands.